Having a cold is just plain lousy – it’s miserable to have a runny nose, coughs and sneezes. Be sure to drink plenty of fluids and keep your skin well moisturized with an extra dose of Striking Serum layered with Striking Creme. And to help beat the blahs and to give yourself a little TLC, we’re sharing some of our favorite comfort foods.
Cold season is here and when you feel lousy, you want comfort as well as healthy choices.
Fitness Magazine highlighted some great choices that should help soothe your cold and keep your diet on track. Each one of these snacks is packed with cold-fighting vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that may help make your cold less severe.
Our traditional favorite - Chicken Soup!It may be cliché, but Chicken soup is the perfect comfort food when you've got a cold! Drinking plenty of hot, nurturing fluids is essential when you're feeling run down and research at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha showed that chicken soup helps control the production and spread of inflammation and congestion-causing neutrophils (white blood cells).
Recommended serving size: 1 cup
Calories: about 190
Soothing Ginger Tea with GingersnapsGinger helps relieve congestion and has a soothing, spicy taste. To make a throat-calming, congestion-busting tea, steep chopped raw ginger in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Make your teatime a little sweeter by adding a teaspoon of honey to the brew and two crunchy gingersnap cookies on the side. We think this is good on a rainy day, too!
Recommended serving size: 1 cup of tea with 1 teaspoon honey and 2 small gingersnaps
Calories: about 85
Fresh Clementines or SatsumasEasy to peel, fresh, sweet and tangy all at once, they are a great source of Vitamin C – just two fulfill 100 percent of your RDA of vitamin C.
Recommended serving size: 2 clementines
Calories: about 138
Open Those Sinuses Vegetarian ChiliA spicy veggie chili made with onions, garlic, kidney beans, tomato paste and a good dash of chili peppers not only warms up a cold-afflicted body, it may also have medicinal properties! Onions and garlic have antiviral effects, beans have good-for-the-immune-system B vitamins, and the spices can actually help clear sinuses!
Recommended serving size: 1 cup canned vegetarian chili
Calories: about 160
Tuna SaladPacked with glutamine, an amino acid that helps step up your immune system's efficiency, tuna is a great pick when you're sick. Research at the University of Oxford showed that athletes who ingested glutamine after workouts were less likely to get an upper respiratory infection than those who didn't; for regular folk, glutamine could have the same beneficial effects. Mix your tuna with a tablespoon of low-fat mayonnaise and serve it on 6 whole-grain crackers for a healthy mini meal.
Recommended serving size: 1 6-ounce can of tuna packed in water with 1 tablespoon low-fat mayonnaise and 6 whole-grain crackers
Calories: about 290
Excerpted from FitnessMagazine.com, January 2006.
http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/snacks/healthy/6-smart-snacks-to-feed-your-cold/
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